Jean Lurçat

The work of Lurçat is immense; however, it was his role in the renewal of the art of tapestry that earned him a lasting place in posterity. As early as 1917, he began with works woven on canvas (canevas), and then, in the 1920s and 1930s, he worked with Marie Cuttoli. His first collaboration with the Gobelins dates from 1937, at a time when he discovered simultaneously the Apocalypse tapestry set from Angers, which definitely prompted him to devote himself to tapestry. He addressed technical questions first with François Tabard, and then, at the time of his installation in Aubusson during the war, he defined his system: gros point, tones counted, drawn Cartoons Numbered. A vast production then began (more than 1,000 Cartoons), amplified by his desire to involve his painter friends, the creation of the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-Cartonniers de Tapisserie), and his collaboration with the gallery La Demeure and Denise Majorel, and then by his role as an tireless propagator of the medium throughout the world. His woven work attests to an art of imagery that is specifically decorative, with a highly personal, symbolic iconography that is cosmogonic (sun, planets, zodiac, the 4 elements…), stylized vegetal motifs, and animal imagery (goats, cocks, butterflies, chimeras…) set against a background without perspective (deliberately distanced from painting), and intended, in its most ambitious Cartoons, to share a vision that is both poetic (he even sometimes enriches these tapestries with quotations) and philosophical (the major themes were already addressed during the war: freedom, resistance, fraternity, truth…), whose culminating point would be the “Chant du Monde” ( Musée Jean Lurçat, former Hôtel Saint-Jean, Angers), left unfinished at his death. His trip to Brazil in 1954 was a decisive source of inspiration for Lurçat: Amazonian flora and fauna (notably butterflies, a recurring theme) then appeared repeatedly: « What interests me about the butterfly, …, is the extraordinary invention constituted by the interlacing of forms, the sparkling liveliness of the colors, that gratuitousness in the coloring… » (Claude faux, Lurçat à haute voix, 1962, p.151). This geographical source would take several forms: “Vera Cruz,” of course, but also “New Delhi”… would serve as pretexts for butterflies. Bibliography : Tapisseries de Jean Lurçat 1939-1957, Pierre Vorms Editeur, 1957 Cat.Expo. Jean Lurçat, Nice, Musée des Ponchettes, 1968 Cat. Expo. Lurçat, 10 ans après, Musée d’Art moderne de la ville de Paris, 1976 Cat. Expo. Les domaines de Jean Lurçat, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat et de la tapisserie contemporaine, 1986 Colloque Jean Lurçat et la renaissance de la tapisserie à Aubusson, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la Tapisserie, 1992 Cat. Expo. Dialogues avec Lurçat, Musées de Basse-Normandie, 1992 Cat. Expo. Jean Lurçat, Donation Simone Lurçat, Académie des Beaux-Arts, 2004 Gérard Denizeau, Denise Majorel, une vie pour la tapisserie, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la tapisserie Gérard Denizeau, Jean Lurçat, Liénart, 2013 Cat. Expo. Jean Lurçat, Meister der französischen Moderne, Halle, Kunsthalle, 2016 Cat. Expo. Jean Lurçat au seul bruit du soleil, Paris, galerie des Gobelins, 2016 Cat. Expo. Jean Lurçat, la terre, le feu, l’eau, l’air, Perpignan, Musée d’art Hyacinthe Rigaud, 2024